Resentment
by Epiphany Under Moonlight
Summary: What an awful web we weave...when we practice to deceive. When we make lies the base of truth, and entrust dark power to our youth. Is it any doubt that blood is spilled and in the process people are killed. Yet through it all the love remains...


Ahem. I put this fic up once but was surprised by the way it came up and everything so I'm re-posting it. Make sure you all review, it would make me ever so happy. Oh and ps, LILY22, much love for reviewing the fic when it first came out. Okay, bye-bye, don't forget to review.  
  
I gazed at the carpeted floor as I walked down the long cool hall of the movie theater, my hair barely brushing against my uncovered shoulders, continuously giving me the calmest notion that spiders were crawling across my skin.  
  
An uncomfortable feeling that I could do nothing to change, or help, or overcome, so much like my present situation in life.  
  
Trapped in a place that I didn't want to be.  
  
A place vastly becoming my own personal hell, bound to people whom had ceased to matter in my life.  
  
People who had wished for me to cease to matter, completely.  
  
To hopefully disappear one day and never again return.  
  
Like a disgusting memory of an awful, past sin.  
  
To them I was nothing more than that, a vampyere with no soul, no emotions, no possible way of doing the things they did and feeling the things they felt.  
  
They only saw the bad...the parts of me that I know I can't escape, that will always haunt me, that's all they saw, all they wanted to see, all they wanted to know,  
  
And it was from that little that they decided that I deserved to suffer.  
  
And I did suffer, not so much from the abuse or the mental anguish, those were all bearable, painful but bearable.  
  
It was the thought that it was not so much their fault, not so much their will, as it was his.  
  
That no one had damned me more than he had, and he did it on childish whim, feeling an immature dislike for me and in a moment he condemned me to a fate worse than death, and as he says now, avoiding my eyes and speaking very softly, he doesn't know why...  
  
Why he hurt me, why it was so important to have me gone, why he didn't say anything to let me know that I was not wanted rather than to crush a soul so old?  
  
Why he waved goodbye and smiled to me that same day that Kaiba helped to carry out the sentence?  
  
Why Yami said nothing when he knew and remembered our history, what we once were to each other, why he was silent when the thought passed around them all that I may hurt them, him knowing full well I would do no such thing?  
  
Why?  
  
No one has an answer for me, and everyone wishes that I would stop silently asking the question.  
  
But I can't.  
  
Because I never ever wanted to be here again, but here I am, I'd want to go home, but there's nothing waiting for me there but shadowed darkness, and sad memories, and dried blood, and it hurts when I'm there.  
  
Like a firm hand is clutching my heart and my throat and squeezing slowly, more and more cutting off all air, and making me ache.  
  
I'd go back to John's home, but he's not alive anymore, and neither is the one person I could have thought to call my friend after all that happened, and it's cold and lonely and I couldn't stand to be in that mansion as a widow.  
  
So I stay here, feeling hurt caress the edges of the emotionless wall I've built around myself and I count the days until...he's a child, one who sometimes doesn't learn from his mistakes, I don't think I'll be waiting long before once again I'm misused.  
  
Till he hurts me, and I really, truly hurt, till they hurt me, and I crack and shatter, till Yami hurts me and I disappear into something I've been afraid of my whole life.  
  
They will, they will, they did, they still do.  
  
...Not so long ago, they despised me, and mistreated me, and reveled in it all.  
  
Found pleasure in my suffering.  
  
Not so long ago, at all.  
  
...Now...  
  
They wish for me to stay here...with them.  
  
No...they don't.  
  
But he does.  
  
He wants me to stay here in Domino with him and Yami.  
  
Living in his Grandfather's house, and being his confidante when he feels he can speak to no other, and apologizing and promising and asking and talking and begging, and doing the things he's not supposed to do anymore.  
  
The things he was never supposed to do.  
  
But that he does like a faithful servant, or like a love-deprived puppy, or a little boy with a crush.  
  
He does all the wonderful, kind things that to anyone seem impossibly sweet and considerate, and in my refusing him, once again I am the villain.  
  
Simply seen as a cold, bitter, young girl who doesn't know how lucky she is, or how selfish she's being.  
  
That's the way he makes it all out to be without trying, the trick he pulls on others too different to ever be accepted as his friend, to hopeful to not have their dreams shattered, and he can't be at fault, it couldn't be his doing.  
  
For he is too innocent to be thought of as evil, and to caring to ever be cruel.  
  
And because he is perfect, and empathic, and understanding I am supposed to give up and fall in love again with him again, or at least in what he stood for, or I am to leave...  
  
That it what is expected of me, that if I cannot return to what I once was, I should just leave, go to wherever, they don't care, but they don't know, they think that it's all my doing but...he won't let me leave.  
  
Not so much by force, though I don't doubt that if he wanted it badly enough Yami would comply, but...he's far too emotional at times, and he's burst into tears and been depressed enough times that if he still cared when I left...I'm not sure what he would do, and I refuse to have anything for him on my conscience.  
  
So I wait, and they think I'm taking advantage of him in some way, but they don't know what I know.  
  
...There's another choice there, the one I'm waiting on, the one he that doesn't understand, the one that I trust the most to happen.  
  
He'll get tired of me.  
  
Of my refusals, of my silence, of my oddities and indifference, he will grow bored and then once more I'll be discarded like trash.  
  
He will...he will.  
  
He has to.  
  
Because I can't live like this.  
  
I won't live like this.  
  
...But I am, and I do, and he likes it because it's the way he wants me right now.  
  
As his.  
  
With no one to turn to, and no one to trust, no one except for him and Yami, and he knows...  
  
For whatever reason now I'm the hunted, the sought after prize, the challenge that he chooses to dare upon, and even if it takes a while he'll try to win me over somehow.  
  
He'll have his way because whatever he wants, he always gets.  
  
Always.  
  
Everyone always bows down to the will of my son.  
  
...Even I did.  
  
I changed to please him.  
  
I tried to become something that I wasn't, something I was not born to be and...he did not like it.  
  
And though I could not accept it at the time.  
  
Though I hoped for it not to be true, I now know and understand that he did not care even half as much for me, as I did for him.  
  
That as much as I felt for him, the swell of affection that filled me as I watched him laugh and be and...my son...my only son.  
  
I knew.  
  
That it wouldn't last, it couldn't last, that soon something would happen and once again I would be alone.  
  
And as cold and distant as I am now.  
  
As much as he chases after me wishing, true, that I will be happy, but more so that with my smile or a kind word the piercing ache that pains him so, will disappear.  
  
I know.  
  
Perhaps he doesn't think about it, doesn't recognize his own feelings, but that's really all he wants.  
  
My cure.  
  
Not myself.  
  
The ability that I have to soothe what ails him and fill him with an unintentional ecstasy, the ability to warm, and entice, and tempt without ever trying, the ability to bind him to me forever when all I want more than anything is to never see him again.  
  
I have this awful gift that so many others desire, and I want so much for it not to be mine.  
  
I pray that one day it will disappear, but in my heart I fear...that this, will be my cross to bear.  
  
...When we first met the roles were reversed, it was I who wanted his attention, I who was enamored by him.  
  
But not anymore.  
  
Not after I saw him in the clearest of lights for what he truly was.  
  
A little boy who had been given so much in his life and treated so well, that he didn't truly appreciate anyone other than his father, didn't know how quickly it could all change if he didn't.  
  
And I prayed that he would learn, remember the way things were, when he was alone, and all he had for a little boy's company was Solomon, remember and be thankful.  
  
But he wasn't and he didn't.  
  
And I was the one who changed.  
  
...After that I didn't want to think about him...after a while I did stop thinking about him.  
  
He didn't exist anymore.  
  
He wasn't mine, not my son or a person, and I was free from this, this little someone who had far too much power and an awful sense of judgment.  
  
I was free...  
  
But that all changed.  
  
Within a fair amount of time, the world flipped upside down and the impossible happened.  
  
My son, my...Yugi, he latched onto me, his grip tight and his words soft, and he told me that he loved me.  
  
Just like that.  
  
And I felt...no.  
  
I don't feel.  
  
I do not feel.  
  
Not anything.  
  
I knew that he meant it, and I could tell that right at that moment, he didn't want to.  
  
He didn't want to be bonded to someone this way, and especially not to me, or anyone like me, and at that moment as he held me, and looked into my eyes, and felt those things, I knew.  
  
He wanted to be every other place in the world but here with me.  
  
Care for anyone else, like flowers love rain and sunshine, than for the one he had refused and rebuked.  
  
I knew it and understood it.  
  
I even tried to be good to him, to help him, because I didn't want it either.  
  
Didn't want him feeling this way after all that had happened, all that had changed, so I said.  
  
"Let me go.".  
  
I didn't say it loudly, or cruelly, or forcefully trying to hurt him, I merely said it.  
  
The way I say everything else, emotionless.  
  
But it was different for him, his eyes widened, and something came over his face, and he never stopped looking at me, not even as he said those words.  
  
Those damning words, spoken haltingly, but seriously.  
  
"I don't think I can. I can't...I can't stop...needing you.", and he blinked, and the light in his eyes was as bright as glass in sunshine, and the expression on his face was one of confusion, and it was the one time he was completely calm while talking to me about what he felt.  
  
It was the one time I actually felt like he listened to me, truly listened to me.  
  
Moments like those now are hard to find, and though he is caring and considerate and wonderful and perfect and everything that everyone should be, he honestly doesn't listen to me, doesn't care about what I want...and then he wishes to know why I speak to rarely.  
  
...And his friends.  
  
Joey, Anzu, Tristan, his supposed oldest, closest, and best friends, they all help him, though they are disgusted as they aid in my capture and entrapment.  
  
Disgusted that the one they have grown to revere, the one who was once more than satisfied with their friendship, is no longer content to be just with them, and instead chooses to spend all his time, with the one that they hate, and not just choosing, but loving.  
  
And as much as I doubt him, and in almost everything he does, I am not so foolish as to believe that he does not love me.  
  
That when he kisses, and hugs, and holds me, and when he cries, and sleeps, and sits in my arms, and as he tells and listens and waits and hopes, that it's all false.  
  
No, he loves me.  
  
I don't know why and I wish I did.  
  
If I could discover what it is that makes him act this way then I would help him to forget about me...but his thoughts are a mystery to me, and I'd sooner go through my suffering again and again than ask him what he thinks, feels, or wants.  
  
But this much is true.  
  
For whatever reason after pushing me away as far as I could go, and hating me, and not caring about what happened, after all that he ended up becoming the one person that would do anything to see me happy again.  
  
To see me smile, laugh, even just feel unboundingly if only for a few moments in every day.  
  
But I'm not so easily fixed and he doesn't understand the problem, and Yami avoids me as if I have the plague, so it stays like this.  
  
...And sometimes I think that he would not have me mended, because this life, this pattern, it's almost starting to appeal to him.  
  
That I'm always there, and I almost never say no, and he doesn't have to share me with anyone other than the one he shares everything with.  
  
And he doesn't want me anymore.  
  
So it ends up this way.  
  
Him in my company, content and purring when I let him sleep in my arms, laughing and smiling and frighteningly affectionate if I went out somewhere fun with him, and as concerned and worried as any mother hen the one time I got a cold.  
  
No, he loves me.  
  
But I don't love him, and he can't make me.  
  
But he does try.  
  
And they help.  
  
Because having me, will make him happy and well again, and the world is not as bright, or interesting, or kind if he is not smiling.  
  
It is he, who makes their mundane lives so much more attracting, makes them so much more intriguing despite their normality, and if he is displeased then they must all find ways to repair the problem, ways that are cold, and manipulative, and depressing, to find in ones so young and mortal.  
  
...And no one would know unless they were caught in the middle of their web.  
  
Know, that within their tight, little knit group there is such a sense of belonging and care-free joy that any one of them would do anything to make sure that it remains, anything to make sure the circle is undisturbed, and their friendship remains a private club.  
  
But it's already disturbed.  
  
And the change is unrelenting, for everything has shifted far too much in such a short amount of time, and nothing is as it used to be, or should be.  
  
And because to hate him would be too difficult, they hate me instead.  
  
Hate me with a vengeance.  
  
For when he should be at an arcade with them, playing games, laughing and joking, and eating pizza like all other teenage boys.  
  
He is at home with me, in the kitchen telling all about his day and constantly asking my opinion on everything, and if I say the right thing or unknowingly do what he wants of me I am rewarded or punished with a hug.  
  
Tight, and affectionate, and surprising, and then barely letting go to ask me something else.  
  
And the things he asks, the things he tells me...  
  
Perhaps he is so comfortable because he is my son, despite all that happened between us, he can't be rid of what he feels for me and the relief that fills him when I am near, but I'd like to think that he is not so open to everyone, that he is clever enough to know how dangerous what he does is.  
  
Catching me while I'm sitting down, and I've nothing to do and nothing to say, and gently lowering yourself right next to me, and when we touch you sigh, like that's all you've been needing all day and there's a quiet, content pleasure that radiates from you as you sit there, for moments as quiet as you'll ever be, and you're tired, too tired to even hug me or say hello, and with your head resting against my shoulder you begin to speak so softly I could almost miss what you're saying, but I can't, that would be too dangerous, and your eyes only open when you feel you've made a point, or if something has truly bothered you.  
  
Something that frightens or worries you, a nightmare or a wonderful dream so real that it still scared you, a thought that you had that you hoped I would understand or be able to explain, and when we've been sitting for a while and it's quiet, I think it's ended, but it's not.  
  
It's never ended because there's still something you want to say.  
  
Still something that's dug it's claws into your soul and won't let go.  
  
And the worst one, the last one, always, always it's about me.  
  
The way no one will leave you alone lately...except me, and there's astonishment and calm hatred when you says that, a cold adoration chilling to the bone.  
  
...Since you gained Yami, you've lived a prized life, being wanted, and enjoyed, and having the pleasure of knowing that everyone loves you and is amazed by you, and you've become so used to it all that when you have to seek me out, have to find me just so you can tell me about something I never asked to hear about, and watch as I don't react as I should, you're angry with me.  
  
Impatient and annoyed and like a bratty three year old.  
  
But impatience fades, and annoyance melts, and in it's place is a fifteen year old boy who fell asleep against me.  
  
Lightly breathing, almost cooing, all warm leather, and soft flesh, and my son.  
  
And I didn't want to wake you, lately you don't sleep as much as you should, so I stayed thinking and still for an hour and thirty minutes and when you awoke and wanted to know what time it was I informed you not thinking I had done any very important thing, but you seemed amazed that I had waited, and curiously thoughtful as you left for a night out with your friends.  
  
And though when they stopped by the house afterwards they seemed content, I couldn't help but wonder if you had given them your full attention, because when you thought I wasn't looking, I saw the way you glanced at me right before you left.  
  
With an expression on your face that seemed too serene to be happy, to calm to be sad, and too understanding to be angry.  
  
And maybe it's the moments like those that you think that I...  
  
Care.  
  
...When you should be paying attention in school, and learning things, and doing work, and understanding like all other students you instead write notes, and cards, and other innocent loving things to me that would break my heart, and almost do when you gives them to me.  
  
Slipping them into my hands after our first hug when you come from school, blushing and smiling, as I read them.  
  
And they're sweet, they're part of the reason that this is all so hard.  
  
That I can't decide what it is I have to do, to end it all.  
  
...He's not a bad child.  
  
He's just...not very serious, and he doesn't know that much about life.  
  
Yet.  
  
But soon.  
  
Destiny will teach him a lesson, one that may shatter his innocence and leave an empty shell in it's place or one that may make him the supreme ruler of all men alike on Earth, I don't know, the odds are weighted and the game is far older than even myself.  
  
But for now he is who he is.  
  
And instead of rushing off to wherever it is they go, happy, and warm, and dry, and reclusive, even when they all pressure him and plead with him, he politely declines, evading questions and being unable to hide happy thoughtfulness as he explains why he can't, and he runs off home when they realize that they won't have him for today, and despite rain, and cold, and an emotional wall between us.  
  
He comes to me.  
  
Instead of perfection, he chooses a silent figure who's only offer is an umbrella and light, empty conversation, he chooses me though there is no promise of affection and tender acceptance, as there is with them.  
  
He chooses me though there is no promise that one day I will not turn on him, and make him suffer for what he did to me.  
  
He senselessly chooses me, like a child chooses the one they trust and love, whether they are good or not.  
  
And as I make my way over to him with my little white umbrella, he waits under the school's blue roof, yet untouched by the rain, ignoring his friends as they try as they might to win him over in some way.  
  
Change his mind and make him come with them.  
  
And as I come near he smiles like sunshine, and straightens, and there's anticipation shining so brightly in his amethyst eyes.  
  
And for all my walls and barriers, it's fairly impossible to ignore the looks bearing down on me, or the happiness that radiates from him when I unexpectedly come for him like this.  
  
And I don't know what he thinks of it all, but the truth is...  
  
...I did it, because it was thundering and I knew he didn't bring an umbrella, he never does, and he would get wet, and sick, and catch a cold that would make him absolutely miserable and keep him in the house for a full twenty-four hours, and at the very least for three days straight.  
  
And I'd rather prevent something like that than cure it.  
  
So I took a walk to his school to pick him up, and found myself in the middle of a silent confrontation.  
  
And the glares, the frowns, the hate-filled thoughts...all of it meant just for me.  
  
The smile, the glance, the unspoken thoughts and sly confidings that they don't know about, and maybe never will, given to me by an innocent betrayer.  
  
And I stop, close enough so that I'm there and they could touch me if they reached out, but far away enough so that...  
  
After that night, I keep as far away from his friends as I can.  
  
Large groups, and the fear of being cornered stirs something deep inside me, something that makes me clench my teeth and dig my nails into my hands, and adding all of them to it all...  
  
Not good.  
  
And he walks away from them, towards me, leaving them as if they were not his best friends, but strangers, and for whatever reason intertwines his small hand into my own, and turns one last time to wave goodbye to them with the one hand still left, before wrapping it around the thin umbrella arm and leaving them to the cold, and the wet, and the rain.  
  
But the gesture is empty and they know it's only that, a gesture.  
  
And I can feel them watching him leave, knowing full well why he won't come with them, and why he is so happy to be going back with me.  
  
And while we walk he pretends that nothing is wrong, and everything and everyone is fine, and he talks mercilessly about his day, and somewhere on the way home he'll end up somber and less radiant and silently asking me to do something I just can't.  
  
And when I refuse, as I always have to, he's away from me.  
  
Physically he's still holding my hand but he walks on the very end of the sidewalk, looking into the windows of the store fronts, and ends up getting wet anyway and I accept.  
  
I don't know why I make him happy now, but I know it simply can't be that way forever.  
  
That I annoy him at times, annoy, disappoint, anger, embarrass.  
  
But no matter how quiet, no matter how serious, by the end of the walk I end being embraced and held tightly and gently as if I am too precious and could break, and he says he understands and that he's sorry, and he knows that things are moving very quickly and he's asking for too much too soon, but he can't help it, I make him very happy and at times he just forgets.  
  
And when he let's go he stares into my eyes and the way he smiles I can't help but wonder what he sees and if he'll ever understand me.  
  
Ever really listen and learn.  
  
...I doubt it.  
  
And when he allows them their few moments of basking in his glory, they fawn over him treating him as though he is their savior...  
  
And he might be.  
  
It's not yet been decided, but I know the choice waits there and the deadline grows closer with each passing day, but he doesn't seem to be worried, and they don't seem to doubt him, for they worship him, and he lets them.  
  
He lets them.  
  
I know when I saw him in the beginning of our second relationship, I treated him more kindly than I'm apt to treat anyone that I've just met, but I was overjoyed to see my Egyptian child alive, and healthy, and happy.  
  
It almost brought me to tears to see my son of so long ago living so vibrantly, uncursed by anything, seemingly blessed by the gods, and so I imposed blinders and refused to see that he was not the same boy I had given birth to.  
  
Not my little boy but a stranger, an angelic-looking product of his times.  
  
Times that bred cruelty, and indifference, from the very first taste of maturity.  
  
A maturity that so few people believe that he even knows about, that even I doubted, but that hides inside of him, known and shadowed like an unspeakable secret.  
  
But the only time I think I was ever close to worshiping him was in Egypt, not now, not when he is so young, and human, but they do.  
  
And I worry for their sakes about it all.  
  
Worry that they are not placing their hopes in one who is so far...above them, and to them, he...  
  
And Yugi, my forgotten, unwanted son...  
  
Now he is a thorn in my side.  
  
Small enough so that at times, I can pretend.  
  
Pretend and forget about the way things are, the way things have turned out and may always be.  
  
But a thorn, large and piercing enough so that soon I am dragged out of my reverie and back into my pain filled reality to see him, smiling, waving, laughing, and holding me as though nothing ever happened.  
  
As if I am not the person that I've become, and he is really as innocent as he may seem.  
  
As innocent as everyone believes him to be, as I believed him to be, before I saw...  
  
He is not.  
  
Innocent.  
  
He can't be.  
  
...And if somehow he is.  
  
Then I pity him.  
  
I suffer for him, because it is probably of my own fault that he is...himself.  
  
Short, and petite, and charming, and innocent, and naive in some ways...but unnervingly knowledgeable in other areas.  
  
Bound to darkness all his life, and being part of the puzzle that has left people mindless, soul-less, schizophrenic, and dead, and then smiling like sweet flowers lost in sunshine and laughing like glass marbles falling in clear ponds, and lying over and over again to anyone helpless enough to fall in love with him, to want his friendship.  
  
The friendship of a crybaby, and a misfit, and a man-child who wins against every opponent, foolish enough to challenge him and dream of succession, and he leaves them...  
  
In the shadows, and the dark, and the cold, leaves them so much more worse for the wear than they ever came to him in.  
  
Leaves them broken, and helpless, and fearing the smile of innocence for they know how quickly it can switch like a razor-blade to that of a cruel smirk with hell and all it's angels hiding in the now cut-throat expression.  
  
It is probably my fault, looking back on it, in hindsight.  
  
Common sense should have dictated that I should have never had child, I was aware that the blood of a vampyere does awful things to everyone it touches, aware that it killed and gave an empty life, but still...  
  
Still I went ahead and had a boy.  
  
At that time I did not regret my decision, my son was my shining, living light and joy and hope and promise, and I loved him.  
  
He was sweet, kind, polite, shy, and...unbelievably hungry for one his age.  
  
Now that I look back on it...he drank far too much for one so small.  
  
Once a week.  
  
That is how often a vampyere has need to claim a victim, enough to drain a normal sized adult, enough to kill.  
  
But he was my son, and I wanted-needed him to be untainted so I never allowed him to claim anyone other than his Father and I, and never enough from either of us so we felt fatigue, and because I wanted to protect Yami as well I made sure that the majority of blood that passed little Yugi's lips was mine.  
  
So I knew exactly how much he fed.  
  
Constantly.  
  
In the morning as soon as he woke up, with his amethyst eyes opening unwillingly and his face showing sleepy annoyance he would make that unhappy sound, but when his eyes focused and he figured out who I was they would light up like little stars and he would smile like pearls and hold out his arms, asking me to pick him up, and I would, reach down and hold his tiny form close to my own, and as he settled in, he would prop his chin on my shoulder and fall back asleep almost instantly, but not before he was fed.  
  
And when we were alone he would come running up to me, hair flying past him, his little feet making quick work of the ground, and standing so very still while gently tugging on my dress he would ask in a voice so undeveloped it was always a whisper, "May I?".  
  
When we had to be at one of Yami's meetings, because as he put it, "Those fools are pushing me to hurt them, and if you and Yugi are there I think I can control myself, however if I'm not able to...do cover Yugi's eye." he would sit in my lap, silent and still, and if the meeting took too long, and also because strangers frightened him he would wriggle backwards, sitting as closely to me as possible and if they watched him, stared at him, he would turn his head, shielding himself from their watching eyes and my veins were right there so...  
  
And the first time...to feel those tiny fangs brush against my neck gently, before even more gently they parted the skin, to watch those delegates watch me as they wondered why a boy of almost four would still be sitting on his mother's lap, and to watch Yami smile as he knew, and Yugi as the small happy sounds bubbled in his throat and left him, catching the delegates attention even more.  
  
And before an afternoon nap while we sat in his room, him in his crib wearing the most comfortable and fashionable sleep clothes we could find for him and I in a chair, wearing clothing far too extravagant, and talk, about everything to cross his little thoughts, before it was time for the candles to be blown out, the windows to be covered, and for him to receive his good night kiss, before we left him for sleep to claim him, and...I suppose he confused affection with attention, for he would come and reach his arms up expecting hugs and I and Yami would lift him.  
  
High into our arms equally, and he would smile, overjoyed, and bite, teasingly nip at the flesh of our necks and come back to press his forehead against each of our own, while he smiled, and stared, and whispered, and thought nothing of the way he behaved.  
  
Nothing of his abnormal appetite and how many bodies would lay by his crib each day if he was allowed to hunt, nothing off his silence and the moments of frightening clarity that came if he felt free enough to talk, he though nothing of nothing and I wanted him so.  
  
That is the child that I knew, the child I helped to raise, but now...  
  
He is different.  
  
I suppose in some ways he has not changed.  
  
He is still a shining, living example of light, joy, hope, and promise, still loved by almost all who think they know him, but...  
  
Now he is cold and sharp, false and gilded, like the sun shining brightly while the weather is horribly cold.  
  
He is outrageously inconsiderate at times, and unmercifully demanding, and most of all.  
  
The thing that keeps me from feeling anything for him is...he is not worthy of my trust, and it disgust me to see what he is doing with the unstained trust of others.  
  
The way he toys with all, moving us around like pawns in one of his games, feeling far too much for us one day and far too little the next.  
  
...He was never like this, maybe he was always like this.  
  
Perhaps back then someone cared enough about me to shield me from what would have eventually happened, I was just too...silly to know it...too young to know how lucky I was...and now I am paying the price for my youthfulness.  
  
...He may be innocent and still a child, despite his years and knowledge, but the way he thinks is the way killers think, mass murderers who find nothing wrong with what they do.  
  
...He doesn't know I think of him this way.  
  
He knows that the love is not there, that affection in general is not returned, but...he doesn't know the cool dislike that sits low in my heart for him, the disdain when I saw the actions he takes and the choices he makes, if he did...I believe he would give up.  
  
Let go of my hand and leave me to fall where I may, that once he realizes there is nothing left to see...I will be alone again.  
  
That's fine, I don't mind. My own company is the best I've ever had.  
  
...But I may just be lying to myself...again.  
  
It seems that with each passing age and a new way of life arising, humankind gets weaker and the stock of people less than what they once were, men who I was honored to have had the chance to meet produced children that sickened me, and it continued getting worse and worse until...there was nothing left of the brave men I had known and loved, nothing but their pathetic youth.  
  
...But that too may be a lie, perhaps it is we that become weaker and more pathetic with each passing, perhaps it is we who deserve scorn and refusal.  
  
Perhaps.  
  
And why not?  
  
We take we rape, we bite, we bleed, we kill, we love, we hate, we destroy, but...  
  
If we were as awful as some think we are, humans would not live as prominently on this planet as they do, we have been very kind and fair to them so far, I suspect partly because we fall in love with those we were meant to destroy.  
  
But we share despite being the ones to rule this land first.  
  
Still...  
  
It begs reason.  
  
Why must it be our race whose blood has a way of getting into everything and staining everyone?  
  
Why are the stains deeper than can ever be redeemed or forgotten?  
  
Why is it that we are the ones that jade the most innocent of souls, and corrupt men who have no interest in the suffering of others, when all we really want is companionship and comfort the same as mortals do?  
  
Why is it our love that is so tainted?  
  
Why?  
  
Or at least why does it always seem to be that way with me?  
  
Not always though.  
  
Some that I shared this gift and curse with, have not changed at all.  
  
Except for their new-found hunger and the newest aspect of life.  
  
Eternal immortality, with few ways to cheaten it, they remained the same despite the continuing years, despite the forcing of a love that I tried so hard to make optional.  
  
Despite it all they remain wonderfully the same, even if they hate me.  
  
They live, and enjoy life as I never have, and love others, and experience so much...and they hate the one who gave it to them all.  
  
How many lovers it took me to realize that I should change no more, the odds being simply too unpredictable, the number of times I was refused after the change being too great, the bodies from souls that could not live the way I did being far too numerous even by vampyere standards.  
  
How many souls did I damn before I came to accept the fact that I would always be alone, that no mortal or immortal would ever make me whole?  
  
Far too many, and still I pay for my sins, still I bear the burden of a weight that threatens to kill me while I live, suffocate me while I breath.  
  
I changed no more.  
  
But I had a child and I should have known that cursing him, before he knew anything of anything with the hunger was a mortal sin.  
  
One I would never escape.  
  
But I was happy.  
  
I had a husband, a life, friends.  
  
I was living my dream at that moment, the happiest I had ever been.  
  
And it was all nice, and good, and sweet, but I wanted a child to make it perfect.  
  
I loved children so much then.  
  
I still do...I think, just not my own son.  
  
I wanted an innocent child, and I had him.  
  
When he was least expected, and most needed, he came.  
  
...And in the first moments after his birth, minutes after the struggle and the shock, his cries came...and I knew.  
  
The way he writhed, and screamed, and fought, in his Father's arms.  
  
Wild, and helpless, begging for relief, begging for blood.  
  
A child of less than an hour and he was hungry, and the hunger itself was slowly starting to kill him, eat him from the inside first...and I hated myself for it hurting him so, and was so sure that Yami would hate me as well.  
  
Would damn and curse me, and want nothing to do with me ever again.  
  
But he surprised me.  
  
He held me, and shushed me, and told me he loved me.  
  
That it did not matter, and that he loved Yugi as well.  
  
That was nice of him.  
  
One nice thing I can look back on, and know that at the moment it was true.  
  
It was real and precious and true.  
  
It was.  
  
It is just now, that it is cruelly ironic and disgusting.  
  
It is just now that it makes me feel like digging a deep grave and climbing inside.  
  
Just now that I realize I was not that different from Yugi, not that far from the naive innocence that haunts me so much these days, the naive innocence though slightly cracked and scratched that I laid ever so gently in his hands for him to break right in front of my eyes when I trusted him.  
  
No, I was not so far as others may think.  
  
And once things had calmed, Yami left to tend to things in the kingdom, do the things that were expected of the pharaoh, but...the smile on his face.  
  
So wide, and bright, and happy.  
  
Like never before.  
  
I had made him so happy at that moment, gave him a present that would never be compromised or cheapened.  
  
And when the door was tightly shut, and I could hear no one coming up or down the halls, I fed Yugi.  
  
He had tired himself out, from screaming and shaking, and anyone else would have thought him to be just sleepy.  
  
A small child needing rest from the events the day had brought.  
  
But I knew better than that.  
  
A new vampyere always sleeps.  
  
Long and determined, refusing to awake until their bodies have fully gone through every change and prepared them for their newest life.  
  
And when they wake, they awake hungry.  
  
Starving actually.  
  
And to hear a starving vampyere, especially a child, one unaware of exactly what it is they need, but knowing that they need something so desperately.  
  
...Horrible.  
  
The screams echo through the world, rippling through the ground and the air and never truly dissappearing.  
  
They scream and cry and are...just so wild, until finally...  
  
They die, or they feast, and hopefully by then the damage has not been done.  
  
They feast, latch onto the first breathing, living person and drink and drink without thought or reason until...the person dies, and they continue with others until some thing inside them is soothed and they can manage to be themselves, or some remembrance of who they were.  
  
If by then there is still some remembrance left of who they were and what happened, they hurt.  
  
Like nails being pried off of hands, and needles being pushed through skin, and listening to water drip, and drip, and drip, and drip, for ten years unendingly.  
  
They grow pitifully insane, and unhelpable, and disgusting.  
  
I know.  
  
I know the horrors of blood lust, I have undergone the hunger several times, I suffer from it even now, and the memory is always there, always, for I had never been human, a vampyere all my life.  
  
Born as one, one of the originals, the first.  
  
One of the many that first stepped foot on this planet, that first helped to create this lineage, and...once, once I died as one here.  
  
Or I thought I died.  
  
Truthfully I'm not sure whether that was true or false.  
  
And I would not let my child...  
  
I vowed, I was not careless nor foolish.  
  
No one's blood but my own, and perhaps Yami's, if he was willing.  
  
And only if.  
  
And looking at him I felt proud, and sad, and happy, for he looked a little like me.  
  
More like his Father of course.  
  
But...  
  
Like his mommy too.  
  
I had never met anyone who looked even a little like me, before that.  
  
His lashes were parted, the fraction of an inch and his violet eyes were glassy and reflecting, his cheeks red and flushed, and his lips just slightly apart for me to gaze down at his baby canines.  
  
Small, but sharp, and...adorable.  
  
My son.  
  
When it was quiet, and just the two of us I rubbed his head, small, and warm, and fuzzy from the little hair that he had been born with, and listened to the shallow breathing and cooing that resulted from the action.  
  
And I smiled.  
  
I believed then that I could birth and raise a vampyere child with no consequences, that no one would harm me for wanting what others are allowed to so mercifully have.  
  
And with him propped in my lap, ever so carefully I made a small cut on my wrist with my own teeth, and holding him closely I held the bleeding wound to his tiny mouth.  
  
And for a second or two, the ruby drops merely fell down into his mouth with him giving no reaction at all, but then his lashes flew apart and frighteningly bright violas focused on my own eyes.  
  
Peering so easily into my soul.  
  
And I vaguely knew...  
  
The way his eyes were so focused, so serious...he would be something.  
  
What?  
  
I did not know at the time, but I knew that whatever he became it would be great.  
  
I knew even then...  
  
...And his eyes stared at me pointedly before shutting finally, while soot lashes brushed and fluttered against hopelessly milky skin.  
  
And I felt his little lips latch onto the open wound and suck.  
  
Hard.  
  
So much so that I winced, and felt apprehension at the tingling feeling that sparked the flesh lost in his mouth and some around that, and I frowned for a few moments, not liking the force with which he was drinking from me, but then I smiled because whether he knew it or not, he was giving me his memories.  
  
Others when I drank, their memories flashed before their eyes, and my own, and I saw what it was they had experienced in all their time in being.  
  
When others drank the reaction was the same but reversed, and they knew what I knew.  
  
But with him, though I wasn't feeding on him, I knew that our memories were pooling within something and being equally shared, and for one so little, the things he knew were...fascinating.  
  
His memories...thoughts, feelings, and the wonderful tickling sensation that spread through me as he gave me the unbound amazement at the things he was receiving from me.  
  
He impressed me, and in that moment while we sat there, so impossibly close, I knew that no matter what he did, what sin he committed, I would always forgive him...and love him.  
  
And...this seems ridiculous to me even as I know it to be true but...he knew I knew about him, and knew about me as I knew he knew, and we...  
  
...A vampyere is promised one thing when they make another, no matter what happens afterward, whether they love each other, or hate and wish to kill each other, they will always be bonded, and that is fact.  
  
Sometimes luck is on our side and the love is there, and it is true, other times...I made one once that absolutely despised me, hated me with every fiber of his being.  
  
I understand why.  
  
I had not made him in love, nor in lust, nor in lucre, rather I made him because I did not want to be the one to kill him.  
  
And he hated me for it.  
  
But with all the hate, all the disgust, he could not get rid of the feelings of need, and want, and love that came with our new companionship.  
  
But with Yugi...  
  
With Yugi the love was there, there from our first moment, and the loyalty was as strong as a rope forged from pure gold.  
  
Yami...I think he fell in love with Yami because he knew he would never harm him, even in their first moments I do not believe that Yugi knew Yami was his father, despite the fact he called him so.  
  
The first time he was ever affectionate with Yami, one day a meeting had ended early, and for a child his age, Yugi was incredibly advanced, walking around in his crib, mumbling little things.  
  
I had left to get him a bottle of milk and when I returned Yami was there sitting on a chair watching his child, and I don't know why but I decided to watch from a curtain and not intrude, and he tried to have a talk.  
  
But Yugi didn't talk, he only blinked, smiled, frowned, and made noises...but Yami still tried in hopes of knowing what it was that he thought about everything.  
  
So he talked and Yugi listened for a time before walking around in his crib, seemingly ignoring him, and I felt bad, awful about the ways things were going, but Yami surprised me.  
  
He was patient...as well as charming.  
  
And he gently picked Yugi up, much to Yugi's quiet surprise, and placed him in the very corner of his crib, the corner closest to him, and Yugi looked so confused, but then Yami did something sweet.  
  
Grasping Yugi's little fist in his hand he gently kissed it, Yugi's eyes widened when Yami did it, and when he had stopped Yugi looked at his hand and at Yami, pointing at his Father's fist, Yami raised it, and in a mimicking action Yugi kissed the skin holding the larger hand in his own.  
  
Yami leaned his head forward, just a little away from Yugi's own face, and said something, and Yugi smiled, and they left.  
  
And I had no doubt then that everything would be fine...and it was.  
  
When they came back, after the sun had set, Yugi had the biggest smile on his face, and had latched onto his Father's leg, and Yami was dragging him along smiling gently.  
  
And when he put him to bed that night, there was a look of absolute adoration on Yugi's face when he kissed Yami goodnight.  
  
I never asked him what he and Yugi did that day, I was just glad that they had both fallen in love with each other.  
  
And they had, truly.  
  
That day, the first day he came into our lives I was so worried, and had so many questions, what would I do?  
  
Was I doomed from that first minute, staring into his eyes and falling in love, would I be something, anything years from now, centuries?  
  
Or would I become a servant to my child, forgiving far too many sins, and becoming will less, pathetic, a formless creature with sins making me nothing more than a shadow.  
  
I was afraid.  
  
Oh God, yes.  
  
I was terrified, I still am, I suppose.  
  
Terrified of my son, even though he is human and innocence in flesh, even though he seems to adore me endlessly, be absolutely fascinated.  
  
I feel...scared when he wraps his arms around me so tightly that it hurts just a little and giggles like a little one, I get nervous when he's emotional and yelling at me for hurting him, and not caring.  
  
Crying, and rubbing his eyes, and ignoring me, and then at the end of the day, giddily promising me the night, and the stars, and all the things that I don't doubt that he could claim if he truly wanted.  
  
A drop of the deepest fear touches my spine, when I see him displeased, truly displeased, and angry and unforgiving.  
  
And I pity whoever made him so because they won't escape the vengeance that will come for them.  
  
Won't escape the fury that hides under his small form.  
  
And I'd rather be anywhere else than wherever I am in those moments when he finds me, and his eyes shine with something that shouldn't be meant for me, and he's blushing for reasons that aren't right, and his kisses, virgin and in all the proper places but...they're too soft, they last too long, and there's longing hidden in every movement. And when he wants touch, constant and intimate, he treats me like a favorite chair, not sitting in my lap, but right next to it, with his back against my chest, and his hair tickling the skin around my mouth. And he'll turn because he wants eye contact or he wants to hug me, and he'll end up resting on my side, an arm on my shoulder the other on my stomach holding me near, and he's fallen asleep countless times that way.  
  
He confuses me.  
  
And I can't help but wonder, if time had been kinder, if events had changed, would he have grown past his four years to the teenager he is today.  
  
And if he had, would he have acted this way, treating me as a teddy-bear, a pillow, a friend, and his mother, or would he have been cruel and mature and rebellious and thoughtless?  
  
Would he have been this way because of that...or that way because of this.  
  
I don't know, and I'm starting to realize I don't know a lot of things.  
  
But the things that I do know, that I do remember...  
  
...I remember that if there was one thing that disgusted me, it was a vampyere sucking away at their victims as though they were drinks, thick smoothies meant to be consumed as quickly as possible, with as little finesse, care, and respect as possible.  
  
It was something I absolutely could not stand, but I beared it because I could understand in his case.  
  
He was starving, born into a bright, loud world that frightened him from his first moment, knowing only one thing, and then feeling an awful wrenching in his stomach, and to feel the pain and not know, to suffer and know no form of release...and then to be given a gift.  
  
An elixir, a drink of power and life and fulfillment, and it was his first taste.  
  
And I knew how it was, when it came from an older more powerful one.  
  
Delicious, exotic, addicting.  
  
So I did not worry, I would teach him better, to drink slowly and savor and be gentle, he would never have to worry about being hungry as long as I lived.  
  
And in a scene simply dear to a vampyere, and horrific to a human, he sucked, making little noises from the back of his throat of approval and enjoyment as he drew the blood from my veins, into his mouth, down his throat, and into his own veins.  
  
Blood that would give him strength and power and life.  
  
Blood that would lull him to do horrible things that I would forgive him for, and love people haphazardly as I had, and hopelessly confuse him as it had me.  
  
My own blood.  
  
My own soul.  
  
And it continued for minutes more, until he was full and sleepy, truly sleepy in a child's way, and he released his little teeth from my flesh and his mouth fell away from my wrist.  
  
And he opened his mouth wide and yawned his little pink tongue sticking out and his teeth glowing white before he closed his mouth again, the little breath left him soundly, and his lashes parted once more, and he looked at me.  
  
And his hazy warm eyes held affection, and adoration, and love.  
  
Pure unadulterated love.  
  
And his eyes closed, and he fell asleep in my arms, purring in his dreams.  
  
And I did not think I would be able to contain all the joy and love I felt.  
  
I did not think I could have been happier, ever.  
  
...I was right.  
  
For in the end, nearly nine thousand years later, that child whom I thought loved me endlessly, dealt me the worst blow ever to truly hurt me.  
  
Truly...wound me.  
  
He hurt me physically.  
  
Mentally.  
  
Spiritually, he succeeded where so many others had failed.  
  
He faced the challenge, and won, like he always does.  
  
With every person.  
  
And he was truly the victor.  
  
I am able to admit to it.  
  
He had won against someone ten times more his age, someone wiser, and more clever, and cunning...  
  
And it was quite a victory.  
  
And though I...hate him?  
  
No.  
  
I don't hate and I don't feel.  
  
But everyone expects me to push him away, and hate him, and be so vile and disagreeable that I would never be loved by even the most generous of mortals.  
  
I cannot.  
  
I cannot be that way, and I cannot lie and say that he does not deserve his prize.  
  
For he does.  
  
I lost to my son.  
  
Fair and square.  
  
And if he wanted me dead.  
  
Then...  
  
He got his wish.  
  
...On the cruelest of days, fresh from the joy of a false friendship and an untrue love, so unaware of the hell that would be waiting for me that night, the hell that would leave me as the monster they so want me to be, I came looking for him, and he...tricked me.  
  
And I...it hurt.  
  
Very much so.  
  
It further bruised a body that had been battered for countless centuries, and as any doctor will agree to, my body was bound to shut down after being inflicted so much damage.  
  
It was bound to do something that would promise me a life full of disability and inconvenience.  
  
But as any doctor will say, I should be thankful I'm not dead.  
  
Perhaps I should be...  
  
But I'm not.  
  
I'd rather be dead then live existence this way, like a broken doll, whose parts have been stretched too far and whose arms and legs move disjointedly, wildly, contemptibly.  
  
Like a little puppet.  
  
I'm much more fond of death than I am of life.  
  
Especially my own.  
  
And as Yugi has pulled me away, countless times, to someplace small, enclosed, and private, to tell me.  
  
"You could...get better if you...you...ate something or...fed...on someone.  
  
If you're scared...of hurting someone...you can always feed on...me, oh Mommy, I won't mind.  
  
I trust you."  
  
He trusts me.  
  
I can't imagine why.  
  
Just because I've shown no interest in getting revenge on him or harming anyone else, does not mean I should be trusted so easily.  
  
If there is one thing that I have learned it is that I cannot even trust myself, that I am my one true betrayer.  
  
My one true executioner.  
  
Perhaps soon he'll learn, perhaps soon the hatred will come back and he will want me to get lost.  
  
...I can always hope.  
  
But he'd shake his head and tell me he doesn't think this way and that it's not true, and I can't think that way because I'll never get better.  
  
...I never said I wanted to get better. My illness is just that, my illness, mine, and there is practically nothing left that I can point to and claim as mine and just mine...  
  
But that's not the answer he wants and for the rest of the day he won't leave me alone or near anything sharp because he thinks that I may be filled with an urge and do something incredibly foolish.  
  
I might.  
  
But I'm not given the chance because something has happened during the day and he's feeling nervous, worried for my own health and well-being, so he gently takes my wrist in his hand, not even caring about whatever I was doing, and leads me off somewhere, and once there he sits far too close for me to feel comfortable, and he says these things gently and seriously and haltingly while I watch life go on around us, barely listening and not caring.  
  
And if I'm being too quiet or too still for his tastes, he sighs, long and heavy and pulls himself closer to me until we touch, and usually, more times than not, he buries his face in my shoulder while I gaze down at my hands.  
  
He wants me to eat, in the oddest sense of the word, because I'm cold to the touch, and skinny to the point of starving, and emotionless to the point of not feeling at all.  
  
And it scares him.  
  
I scare him.  
  
I scare him.  
  
smile.  
  
Like nightmares, and the all too realistic fears of a small child, and pain coming and coming and coming with no way for him to stop it.  
  
He wants the old me...?  
  
No.  
  
He deserves credit for not being foolish enough to think that way, he had the old me, fully within his grasp, and he rejected me, he did not like that person...but he does not like the person I am now, does not like anything about the way I act or speak or live, because I scare him.  
  
But he does not want the old me.  
  
He wants a healthier, happier, version of the person I am now.  
  
And for all his naivety, he knows enough that with each drop I steal from someone else, a small part of my body will be mended.  
  
I'm not sure how he found out, perhaps he drew on what little society has gotten right about us, perhaps he asked Yami, no matter how, he knows.  
  
...But he also knows enough that if there is anything I haven't been doing for the past year, it's feeding.  
  
...And I haven't.  
  
The last time I fed, was the night of the accident, a year, six months, twelve days, two hours and thirty-six minutes ago to be exact.  
  
And he knows I think on it, and I know he thinks on it, and because we both know it seems ridiculous that he refuses to mention it, rather every day I get an apology.  
  
A sad, "I'm sorry", while we sit there until one of us gets up and moves.  
  
Until he lets me go, so I can actually move.  
  
And for a while after it all, he will avoid me, stay away from the rooms he knows I'll be in, not come near the places I have been, for a while he will do everything in his power to forget about me.  
  
Forget about his promises, and his lies, and his feelings.  
  
...And I'm thankful to him, for that.  
  
Knowing, and taking note, and being considerate of it.  
  
For as much as I don't mind, as much as I am indifferent, there are times when I need for him to stay away from me.  
  
Just as he needs time away from me and time close to me.  
  
But soon it falls, falls, and breaks, and returns to what it was.  
  
Usually before him going to bed, or myself disappearing off into a corner of the house for the night, he apologizes.  
  
Once again.  
  
...


End file.
